CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Cincinnati-based engineering firm will be in charge of updating Yeager Airport’s Master Plan.
The airport board voted Wednesday to hire Landrum and Brown.
Part of the Master Plan will look at runway safety areas on both ends of the runway, particularly near the airport’s overrun area where the massive hillside collapsed in March of 2015.
Mike Plante, spokesman at Yeager, said representatives with Landrum and Brown will soon meet with airport officials to get a scope of what needs to be done in more detail.
“They’ll look at the options available and come up with a plan that best addresses the needs given all the issues involved around rebuilding whether on the 5 end or the 2-3 end,” Plante said following a Wednesday board meeting.
Typically, the Federal Aviation Administration requires Yeager’s Master Plan to be updated every 10 years, but Airport Director Nick Keller said they needed to update the plan following the slope failure. The last update was in May 2010, he said.
The FAA told Yeager officials that they wanted to see the safety zone replaced and operational as quickly as possible. Nick Keller, the airport’s assistant director, told the airport board Wednesday, he believes the FAA would help them rebuild.
So far, more than 550,000 cubic yards of debris has been removed off Keystone Drive in Charleston — an area that was severely impacted in the collapse. Plante said crews have about 5,000 cubic yards left to remove.
“You can actually see a lot of the original road contour now,” Plante said. “The culverts and things like that that have to be repaired still because we’re now into the colder months, they won’t be able to pave it until warmer weather.”
Plante said he couldn’t confirm when Keystone Drive would reopen.
The slope failure destroyed a church on that road, damaged homes and displaces a number of residents for months after the disaster.